Spuck,
I was just responding to this:
"I like it how it is right now .. ctc doesn't have to be the central element of the game. Should bs/bp be kicked out when the next big thing comes around?"

Not elaborating on my original post.

CTC needs some work.
But in its current state its just annoying bots shooting at random ppl in grey.
And yes BP should be removed or revamped when the next big thing comes.
Why?
Cause we have too little players online.
CTC is meant to be a group activity.
Its just a shoot, grab cargo, go back to nation space.

ctc is hanging around but it's allready obsolete in theory..

IIRC a convo with incarnate i had a while back left me with the following impression.

when the economy is redone and everything has a supply chain the whole universe will be one big ctc, tied into the existing npc convoys.

if enough convoys are stopped from getting 'raw materiels' (trade goods) to a specific station the price of certain 'end goods' (ships, weapons, etc) will go up at that station. if the end goods go up in price enough, the station will (eventually) spawn missions to A get more of the raw materiel, B find out what is causing the shortage(something similar to the locate the hive/levi mission?) which will lead to C, 'clear up the problem' missions being spawned.

at the same time (in theory) if no players take them after a certain amount of time, NPC's will take the missions that are generated.

Cool. That's exactly what needs to happen. Maybe also if a station runs completely out of certain stuff, they can't build certain other stuff that needs that stuff.

Thanks for the info Spellcast.

As Kix said, capture the flag/ctc used to be the central core of the game.
I dont see "universe/economy/supply chain/ctc" bringing community together like ctc used to do.

For instance station in Metana gets short on xit and issues a mission to bring them xit.
Who cares?
Players will find it easier to just shoot some npc convoy and take its cargo and sell it then to haul xit from edras to metana and get less money then they can get for selling cargo from destroyed npc convoy.
Without a real goal and special rewards/widgets players will just go about their business and most of them will just act as pirates blasting npc convoys.

That's just the thing. If production of an important item depends on shipments of a certain ore or component, and you can kill the convoy or players carrying it, then your enemy doesn't get that thing. Or if it's coming to you and you can defend it, your reward is that you get to make that thing.

A form of CtC can still remain if new ships and equipment are introduced. I suggested this earlier, too. To officially introduce a new item, a convoy can transport the prototype from one station to another for testing. If it is delivered successfully, the nation who built/delivered it gets it first, until something similar is developed in the other nation. If it is stolen, the reverse happens. This would be a rare enough event (a new prototype), and the reward would be big enough, that there would be a lot more incentive to participate.

Good comment Prof. Chaos.
It might work as a localised event in strictly defined single stations and sectors/convoy routes /like ctc now/ but.....what if it happens all over universe say 10 serco/itani different stations are producing vital components for new design/wep and they need ores or parts from dozen subfaction stations so in order for one side to win conflict and get special widget in one week youll need like 200 players on each side participating in group effort to defend or attack convoys.
Count in pirates that will want a piece of action and loot and youll have total chaos.
Provided VO can handle 500-1000 players blasting at convoys and each other all over universe every sec. 24/7 its still a bit far fetched.
I dont see VO populated by vast numbers of players in the near future. Not at this rate of development and implementation of new content.
So in the next year or two, till VO gets completed and ready to go public, we will either have old ctc which nobody wants/cares about or new economy kind of ctc which existing playerbase wont be able to handle and probably wouldnt care to handle it at all.
What we can look for in the near future is slow dying of nation/military guilds and total migration of playerbase to pirates.
Playing cops and robbers can be fun for some time but what when its the only thing you can do in VO?

To conclude this ill give you one very simple example.
My guild SKV is Itani military guild consisting of good pvpers and expirienced players.
Most of us still play VO but we play alts since there is absolutely no reason to log our tough military characters.
Why?
We have no enemies to fight.
CTC is dead so there is no need for organised teamplay.
BP is boring bot blasting and again with no real enemies to fight in BP its just not worth doing.
BS was fun when it started but now its just too laggy to participate in it seriously and also novelty is gone.
Hive, queens and levis....PVE is not our cup of coffe. Sure we do it to get combat levels and xp but face it, where is the fun if you have 3 ppl shooting to kill levi for 4 hours just to get some samo and ores.
Greyspace is filled with pirate bots. Fighting them gets boring after some time so most of us just get Liberation mission to fly thru grey uninterrupted.
Sure we can fight players/pirates in grey but SKV is not antipirate guild and atm its more fun playing a pirate then fighting them.
We are no traders or miners so spending online time in VO trading/mining is a waste. We are pvpers and teamplayers who love group combat.
Sadly there is no content for us in VO atm.

Question: With the economy redux, will the stations' prices simply go up if denied raw materials, or can you actually prevent them from making anything at any price? Also, how vulnerable will stations be to material deprivation (i.e. does getting 1 set of component parts = production of 1 item or x# items, OR will it be it produces at price Y-credits when receiving Z component parts, OR something else, possibly this will be different for different stations)?

P.S. Will there be NPC miners?

I hear ya Boajn. I miss PvP... even with everyone jumping ship to become a pirate, there are rarely enemies around...

/me lights a candle and sobs

Bojan: As we get more paying players, the devs will be more able to add content. Eventually they’ll be able to afford additional servers and employees, which means faster content growth. Eventually we’ll have all those players.

I do imagine this to be a localized event. Hopefully with or without a crafting system, when major new stuff is invented (like, say, a new superfast light fighter), the prototype will have to be delivered from a research station to a production facility, or somesuch thing. A journey of some sort, anyway. This will not be such a common event that there’s no point taking interest. The procurement of ores and parts for simple production is what will be happening constantly, which is what is supposed to happen. To lay siege to a station would take a combined effort from several players. The idea is to add strategy to the game, while currently there is only tactics.

Cops and robbers will never be the only thing to do in VO. Currently there is no cops and robbers. There will be no cops and no robbers if there is nothing with which to build ships, etc. and no one will be able to afford their equipment if they don’t do stuff to earn money. Pirates will have nothing to pirate if no one trades or mines. A dynamic economy will regulate these things by itself.

I agree there is no reason for organized teamplay currently. Seige would take a team. Also, if stations are capturable, then there will be REAL nation war, with territory gains and losses, real battles with real consequences. How’s that a reason to log on your tough military character? Also, with a real nation war going on, there will be something fun and important to do other than pirating, so there’s no way everyone will become a pirate (some will), and the universe will not be uncontrolled chaos. If these possibilities are ever realized, plunder will be more likely than mere pirating. I would probably make my character a military one rather than pirate, but I would plunder any Itani I come across (assuming I actually someday get halfway decent at pvp). This would be much better than artificial empty things like CtC and BP/BS. Also, hopefully there will be fewer but stronger pirate bots.

LostCommander: Mostly prices will simply go up because it will cost more to get people to do dangerous runs to deliver much needed ores/parts. It would be difficult and require a sustained siege by a team of players to make a station actually run out of stuff, but it would be possible. Hopefully each item would need a specific recipe of stuff: 2kg of ore 1, 5kg of ore 2, 3kg of ore 3 built at assembly plant type A makes component x. At another kind of assembly plant, component x is the last part needed to make a certain ship. So maybe 1 cu of whatever makes so many of whatever. Without any single ingredient, a part can’t be made, or maybe another ingredient can be substituted but the quality is lower. There’s no point in coming up with real numbers now. If there’s NPC everything else, there should be NPC miners. I believe they are already trying to make NPCs act more like players.

@Professor Chaos
Somehow we got away from my original proposal: Removing ctc from VO.
Everything you said about the future stands, I agree completely. Alas, that future is very distant. I am not undermining devs work, they are doing a great job but basically atm only 2 options are open: removing ctc or enhancing it.
More paying players will come after VO goes public but that is not going to happen for another year /i could be wrong thou/ or more.
We are living and playing now not in distant future so my idea was to do something now in order to keep existing playerbase occupied and content.

Is enhancing ctc such a big problem? Making ctc transports drop hive posis and batts and raising delivery reward for cu to 5000 or more? Giving ctc winners access to lawneuts for a week?

making it an actual npc convoy and not some weirdo hive one!

Ok so a connie was a bit crazy but heavy moths! atleast they shoot back!

despite everyones (well not everyone, just the really crank and crotchety old vets) "stop mentioning CTF it is regression" The devs have yet to recreate the nation teamwork and pride and gloating that CTF had!

No one cared that they were dieing ten times and every time it was just to touch the old flag and then be blown up because it was like "Ok we have another minute!!" somehow CtC needs to be charged with a similar Excitement, NuetIII's that anyone can stockpile will not do it. and neither will a couple bucks for delivering the cargo

Bojan: I see what you mean about your post. I don't think we're off topic per se, but rather the topic has become very broad and filled with wild speculation. These ideas are what I hope eventually replaces CtC, but I see the need for an immediate temporary fix. Which brings me to....

CrazySpence: I agree completely. I missed out on CTF, it was before I found this game. I think if there were higher stakes involved in CtC and it happened half as often, and then some CTF on top of that.

I have no idea whatever how CTF worked before, is there a description on the wiki? I'll check, but if not, could someone fill me in on how it worked? Might get some ideas flowing.

CTC is a waste.....Ive done way to much of it....I mean seriously It just needs to be cut out....Ok How many people use Nuet3? Mostly everyone basically used nuet2 or aap the most...if there was a new weapon like each week we can get that would be great....Like in one month we get to have 4 different types of weps....Each week that weapon will be released to the winning side...But to make it interesting we wouldnt know what weapon will be released....or created....Which would make it more interesting....But the same weapon would not be released twice in that month period.... and someone commented on if we get more paying Players the devs will make more changes.....Thats like saying....You have to pay to take this car for a test drive???? one will never know how that car drives now will they?? But instead if they get to take a test drive without paying and have all the goodies in it then more then likely they will buy it no? So I say this thread most likely should have been a poll Yes or NO to the toss of the CTC....But Not many do it anymore not participated anymore people just do it for the cash thats basically it

Demenor: I greatly enjoyed the glorious chaos that was your post. We need more chaos here.

I like your idea of more than one prize for participating. That would inded make it more interesting, and is part of what will happen with a dynamic economy where the universe is a big CtC.

"and someone commented on if we get more paying Players the devs will make more changes....." That was me. I didn't exactly say that, what I was pointing out was that currently Guild can only afford the current four members. More subscriptions = more Guild revenue = more Guild budget = Guild hires more employees = more manpower to make more changes. Guild is making changes no matter what, but with more people this will happen faster.

A yes/no poll on CtC would be interesting.

After reading Incarnates reply to Vendetta 1.6.15 thread in general on sunday I decided to let this thread fall to oblivion.
As he said he is doing the best he can atm.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/ctfstats/1

Dsiclaimer, the link will only work this week.

i'm not sure what you're trying to show with this.

yes, there's low participation in ctc (heck, i kill 'voys when i stumble on one but dont bother making the excruciatingly long trip to collect any fame and reward).

but this still shows some do bother with ctc and... if those few cus of p-xith brought some amusement to some, we might as well leave it in for as long as it does not hinder other missions.

unlike unrats wich do hinder ctc. and everything else.

My problem is when they're left behind to haunt Sedina L-2 or another sector and interfere. A bot bug but still very annoying.

I see no point in removing it. I did it for week 100 it was a bit fun :)

CTC doesn't need to be removed, there's no point in REMOVING content when the game is already clearly lacking just that.

An easy way to make CTC more active is through some kind of reward.

maybe some credit toward earning a new weapon/ship/thingy from a faction by intercepting and delivering it to Serco, Itani, UIT, or Corvus.

VO need some way of identifying a kill assist so players can be rewarded for participation even if they're not the deliverers of the Xith.

A mission should be made in the base CtC stations that rewards the players for sucessfully seeing the transport safely to it's destination.

All of the above are VERY simple fixes that would at least breath SOME life back into VO.

Devs, I don't care if rewards aren't balanced as long as it brings more life to organized PvP, it's a good ting.